


In This Galaxy, Nothing Can Be Said To Be Certain

by norah



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Genre: Action, Humor, M/M, Taxes, science-fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 04:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norah/pseuds/norah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Arthur put his head in his hands. He'd been traveling with Ford for the better part of a decade now, and this sort of thing still never failed to raise his blood pressure.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	In This Galaxy, Nothing Can Be Said To Be Certain

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for beta go to Kyuuketsukirui and Queue, who never fail to rip my writing apart and make it better.&lt;p&gt;Thanks for Britpicking and canon help go to the inimitable Calathea and Foreverdirt, who were amazingly patient with my ignorance.&lt;p&gt;And last but not least, I must confess that not only did Thefourthvine beta-read this story, she also wrote several significant chunks of it, including all the good bits. Thank you, TFV! Written for Rheanna in the Yuletide 2006 Challenge

Another bolt from one of the large, snub-nosed guns sizzled past them and hit a nearby dustbin, knocking it over.

"Run!" Ford yelled, and they ducked out from behind their sheltering stairway and dashed up the alley to the next street.

"Which way?" Arthur grabbed Ford, looking frantically down the nondescript street. "I can't remember where we parked!"

"This way!" Ford took off toward the right, and Arthur followed.

When the toothy, warty Vroths in their elaborate uniforms emerged from the alley, panting in the unfamiliar atmosphere, their quarry was nowhere to be seen.

"To the spaceport," growled the toothiest, wartiest one. "We'll intercept them at their ship."

They turned left, and disappeared down the street.

Two hours later, Arthur stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and folded his arms. "We're lost, Ford," he said.

Ford, who was busy darting down yet another dimly lit alley, didn't hear him.

Arthur waited.

After a minute, Ford came back out of the alley and attempted to pull Arthur in with him. "Are you mad?!" he hissed. "They'll find us!"

"Then at least _someone_ would know where we were!" Arthur dragged Ford to a halt just inside the alley. "We're _lost_. And I think you owe me some explanations. This is the third planet these...these...monochrome toads have followed us to. It can't possibly be a local hunting season anomaly like you said last time." Ford took a breath, and Arthur held up a restraining finger. "And you've already used 'mistaken identity,' 'tragic Babelfish malfunction,' and 'it's simply a warm greeting in their culture.'"

Ford looked shifty. This was not significantly different from his usual appearance, so Arthur failed to notice. "There may have been a slight misunderstanding," he said.

Arthur sighed and summoned Put-Upon Expression Number Four. "What have you done?"

"Nothing!" Ford said, countering with Innocent Expression Number Nine.

Arthur simply waited.

"Look, it's not my fault," Ford protested. "It was all on the up-and-up!"

Arthur continued to wait. As a native of England, his ability to wait patiently was superior only to that of the natives of Mon'gar, in which queuing quietly was the predominant cultural art form.

"I took this job, see. Bit of traveling money, light work for decent pay, all very aboveboard." Ford sounded aggrieved. "Bunch of mad Triganans, wanted a brochure done up about their planet, said they'd pay me in Altairian dollars, it was right there in the contract."

"So, you didn't do the work, was that it? Or did you cock it up somehow?"

"I did the work, honest—pages on pages of glowing prose about Trigana. Bloody difficult too, I don't mind saying. Triganans are a funny lot. Brightly colored, highly intelligent triangles whose idea of a good time is radar-enabled snipe hunting. Makes their planet a hard sell as a tourist destination." Ford trailed off. "Where was I?"

"You were getting around to telling me why people are shooting at us," Arthur prompted.

"Oh, well." Ford fidgeted. "There was a bit of a disagreement. About, erm, my expense account. More specifically, about drinks."

Arthur knew more than he cared to about Ford's drinking habits. Ford had what he claimed was a moral objection to paying for his own drinks, and often went to excessive lengths to find alternatives to doing so. Since Ford exhibited no other signs of any moral sense whatsoever, Arthur regarded this claim with skepticism and no small amount of bitterness, as he himself had frequently proved the closest available alternative funding source.

"Came after you for the money, did they?" he enquired.

"Well, no," said Ford. "They paid up, no problem there. No, I'm afraid it's worse than that. They reported my income to the Galactic Revenue Service."

Excessive wealth, as anyone who has it will attest, is a terrible burden. The extremely wealthy are beset on all sides by dilemmas unknown to the less financially flush, among them the tremendous difficulty of finding good help, the crippling ennui of owning everything one wants, the crushing fear that people only like you because you're fabulously rich, and the constant hounding by the interplanetary paparazzi.

The Galactic Revenue Service is a charitable organization devoted to rescuing beings from this ghastly state of affairs by preemptively relieving them of all of their money. However, because people are notoriously unappreciative of true acts of altruism , the enforcement branch of the GRS (motto: _The Tare: Because We Care_) is rather large, rivaled only by the complaints division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation in sheer size. They handle the taxation of over twelve thousand planets and planetary systems, and work with over seven hundred local currencies.

They recruit their workers primarily from the Galaxy's vast pool of unemployed Vogons and Vroths, the latter being descended from the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax and having inherited both their bloodthirsty temperaments and their mindboggling denseness. The Vogons do the paperwork; the Vroths do the footwork, much like interplanetary bailiffs.

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, that excellent reference guide for the budget traveler, says of the Galactic Revenue Service, "Under no circumstances should the wise hitchhiker ever make itself known to the GRS. They are more tenacious than the Tracking Hrunds of Bixastow, nastier than the Snarling Grattafiends of Trog, and even your towel will not save you if you come to their attention.

Nothing makes a Galactic Revenue employee happier than an audit, and nothing makes one crankier than a tax credit. These are really, seriously unpleasant guys, and you should steer clear of them at all costs, lest you have a _terminally_ bad day."

Arthur, of course, knew nothing of this. "You didn't pay your taxes?" He glared at Ford. "People have been _shooting_ at _me_ across three different solar systems because you didn't pay your _taxes_?"

Ford shushed him, looking nervously at the mouth of the alley."Look, no, that's not it," he hissed. "That would be fine! That would be great! No, Arthur, it's worse than that. _I didn't make enough money._ The Triganan contract _wasn't enough_ to put me in a higher tax bracket."

Arthur looked at him in blank incomprehension.

"I've got a tax credit coming," Ford whispered in horror. "They're looking for me to give me a tax credit."

"And what's wrong with that?"

"Ask the Guide," Ford said, looking green.

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ has this to say about Trigana:

> "Trigana, in the southeastern quadrant of the Piyartoo solar system, contains many scenic attractions, all of them having three sides and three angles, and is thus a popular destination for trianglosexuals. Trianglosexuality is, of course, a wholly valid lifestyle choice, and suggestions for popular pickup lines, useful personal vertices, and the best brands of sexual protractors can be found under the entry entitled 'Trianglosexuality: When Two Sides Are Not Enough.'
> 
> However, for the non-trianglosexual hitchhiker, the most important feature of Trigana is its currency. Unlike their cousins, the Hooloovoos, the Triganans chose not to use lightwaves as currency (too easily devalued or even defluoresced, they said) and opted instead for a base unit known as the Ningi. The Ningi is a strong, stable currency backed by state lands and other holdings and issued from a central source.
> 
> Under no circumstances accept a Ningi.
> 
> Initially, the Ningi was a simple wooden triangular coin, and many hitchhikers stayed for months on Trigana simply by whittling triangles in their spare time. The economy couldn't stand the strain of such an easily duplicated unit of exchange and went into a deep depression. In response, the Triganic Ministry of Finance held a planet-wide competition to create the ultimate in counterfeit- and inflation-resistant currency.
> 
> They received just four entries, and only one was perceivable in less than four dimensions. And so the base unit of currency on Trigana is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side.
> 
> The casual hitchhiker will have no trouble avoiding the Ningi; the economy of Trigana has returned to the barter system that had been in place for the eight millennia prior to the creation of the Ministry of Finance, and this continues to work quite well.
> 
> However, the Ningi remains in use throughout the government. As a result, the Ministry of Finance is the tallest building on the planet, and is a recommended tourist attraction during economic upsurges, as it is invariably crushed under the weight of the economy and re-built on top of itself. (Recommended minimum viewing distance is three times the current base of the Ministry of Finance building.) Hitchhikers may be tempted by the advertisements throughout the galaxy offering well-paid employment at the Triganic Ministry of Finance, but be advised that it is a highly dangerous place to work, as at any moment, an uptick in Triganic fortunes may squash the building flat.
> 
> Those conducting _any business whatsoever_ on Trigana, with Triganans, or most particularly with any element of the Triganic government are strongly advised to insist, first and foremost, on payment _only in Altairian dollars_, as payment in Ningis is invariably fatal.

Arthur thumbed the Guide off and looked at Ford. "I take it your tax credit isn't coming in Altairian dollars?"

"Right," Ford said. "I'm owed a Ningi. Can we run now?"

"No," said Arthur.

As Ford gaped at him in panic, Arthur ran out of the alleyway and into the path of a furry lavender passerby. "Can you tell me the way to the spaceport?" he asked politely.

One of the furry tentacles lifted and pointed back the way they had come. "That way and then a right at the InfinIllusion megaplex," it purred.

"Thanks," Arthur said, and darted back into the alleyway to where Ford was gibbering quietly to himself.

"_Now_ we can run," he said.

They ran.

The spaceport, when they reached it, proved somewhat of a disappointment.

Ford howled and did a little dance of fury on the empty launch pad. "Zaphod, you zarking four-faced intergalactic greeb, you can't just strand us here like this! Not even a note! Not even a message, to say, 'Sorry, stepped out for a megaburger, back in ten!'"

"Actually," a sepulchral voice echoed from near a shadowed service port, "they did leave a message."

Ford stopped his incensed capering and peered into the dark. "Marvin? Is that you?"

Marvin the Paranoid Android stomped miserably out into the light. "Brain the size of a planet, and what do they say?" he asked, continuing without waiting for a response. "'Just stay here, that's a good chap,' they say. 'Give Ford and Arthur this message when they get back.'" Here he laughed hollowly, a horrible grinding rusty squeak that made both Ford and Arthur wince and cover their ears. "'Think you can remember it, Marvin?' they ask. If there's anything I can't stand more than being given menial errands, it's being given menial errands in a condescending manner. But here I am, brain the size of a..."

"Yes, yes," Ford interrupted. "You said that already. What's the _message_, metalman?"

"Well," said Marvin, "it's not much of a message."

"Please," said Arthur, restraining Ford, who had turned red and was sputtering with fury. "Marvin, just tell us."

Marvin sighed deeply. "If you must know."

"I'm afraid we must," Arthur said firmly.

"'Sorry, stepped out for a megaburger. Back in ten!'"

"That's it?"

"Yes."

"That's the message?"

"Yes."

Ford was wheezing and his eyes were bulging in an unbecoming fashion. "We're all going to die," he choked out.

As if to validate his predictive powers, at that point the launch pad area erupted in gunfire.

"Don't move!" boomed the Vroth bailiffs. "Hold still for delivery!"

Ford ducked behind Marvin. "No, thanks!" he called out. "Not interested!"

Arthur ducked behind Ford as another bolt sizzled past. "Marvin!" he hissed, leaning over Ford's huddled form. "Where's the nearest place to hide?"

"Why prolong the agony?" Marvin asked mournfully.

"Marvin!"

"Well, there are several hallways past that service door that are bound to have something," Marvin said, pointing, twin bolts shearing past his outstretched arm and singeing his casing slightly as they passed, "but really, wouldn't you rather just end it all now? So much simpler that way."

"No, thank you, Marvin," Arthur said, from between clenched teeth. "Now, can you run behind us and give us some cover?"

A dark shadow fell across the launch pad as something gigantic moved through the atmosphere and blotted out the sun.

"It's the Ningi! It's coming!" Ford whimpered. "We have to get out!" He called to the bailiffs, "Can't we discuss this like rational people?"

A hail of gunfire was his only reply.

"Maybe they'll melt me down by accident," Marvin said with grim satisfaction. "Reduced to slag by tax collectors. I always rather thought it would be something like that."

"Yes, right, that's great, Marvin," said Ford, twitching impatiently. "When I say 'Now', you cover us, okay?"

"Brain the size of a planet," Marvin said, "and you want me to..."

"Now!"

They fled. Marvin lumbered rapidly after them, garnering new singes and scars on his casing from the laser bolts and generally acting as a large, morose shield.

The run took them down a long dark hallway, through four multi-species toilets, one extremely dingy employee break area, and thirty-four terminals filled with travelers grimly trundling rolling cases and trying desperately to corner harried spaceline representatives.

Fortunately, several hundred of the tourists—obviously not conversant with that most indispensable of volumes, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_—noticed the Vroths' uniforms and assumed they were simply representatives of a new spaceline company. The Vroths went down in a volley of requests for transfers, special meal orders, and complaints about lost luggage.

As a result, Ford, Arthur, and Marvin outpaced them handily.

After Marvin picked the only lock they'd been able to find, exuding his own extra-concentrated brand of despair as he did so, they slipped through an unmarked door and found themselves in a grubby, windowless room. Operating on the theory that any barrier between you and utter obliteration at the hands of a foreign currency is a good barrier, Ford slammed the door against the approaching sounds of pursuit - the Vroths had picked up their trail again—and locked it.

They surveyed the room. It was apparently someone's office, although possibly not someone who did much actual work. The remains of a takeaway moldered next to the lone data terminal, and dusty travel brochures adorned the filing cabinet next to the desk. Ford picked one of them up as he prowled the perimeter, searching for a way out.

Their pursuers thundered past the door, shouting, and then did it again.

"Visit Sunny Damogran!" Ford read, and sneezed. "Not if I don't get out of here." He threw the brochure back, raising another tiny dust cloud and occasioning another sneeze, and kept prowling. "I need a drink," he said, looking under the desk to see if there were a secret escape hatch underneath it. "A drink, and then possibly another drink after that."

Arthur ignored him and grabbed Marvin by the arm. "Marvin, I need to get into the spaceport's sub-etha network. Can you hack me in from this terminal?"

Marvin did. Arthur worked the terminal intently as Ford hummed snatches of various cultures' death marches, muttered to himself about the joys of Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, and circled the room restlessly, occasionally punctuating the humming and muttering with a bitter laugh.

Every so often the sounds of their pursuers would get closer, and then fade as they opened the wrong door or took a wrong turn. Eventually, the shouting and banging drifted down the hall, and a promising quiet made itself heard. Ford, who by that time was poking his finger into a disused electrical socket and seriously irritating the space vermin who had made it their home, left off and went to the door. He put his hand on the knob and listened carefully for a moment.

"Hey guys," he said to Arthur and Marvin, who were bent over the computer terminal. "I'm just going to check and see if they're gone, because it's awfully quiet, and I think..._greeeeagggghh_!"

"Greeeeagggghh," in the native tongue of the little-known inhabitants of the planet Snix, means "I have just been confronted by two rather disturbingly bloodshot yellow eyes and far too many sets of teeth, and am as a result both dismayed and distressed." (Ford had once visited Snix to assemble a useful phrasebook for the visiting hitchhiker. "Greeeeagggghh," owing to certain local conditions, was one of the first phrases he had selected for inclusion.)

Ford slammed the door shut as the shouting began again.

"Guess not," he said to no one in particular. Arthur and Marvin were certainly not paying attention; Arthur was now talking urgently to Marvin, whose fingers were moving so quickly over the keyboard that they were a blur. Marvin had begun to hum tunelessly in a grating, unpleasant way that meant he felt his current activity was only moderately more onerous than not existing.

The shouting escalated, and was accompanied, a few moments later, by shooting. Simultaneous energy blasts rocked the door, and sparks skittered through around the hinges.

Arthur called, "Hey Ford, who's your next of kin?"

"What?" Ford looked up from his attempt to drag the filing cabinet in front of the door.

"Your next of kin!"

"Haven't got one, Arthur. I'm the last of my race! Who am I supposed to have 'kin' with?" Ford thought about that for a second and then called through the door. "You hear that, you guys? I'm the last of my kind! You can't kill me; that's genocide!"

"We don't want to kill you!" one of his attackers yelled back.

"Then why are you shooting at me?"

"These are stun blasts!" The door heated and sagged slightly in the middle as it was hit with another volley of bolts, and Ford renewed his efforts with the filing cabinet. "Well, not these, these are ultra-mega-kill-o-zap blasts, but the ones we'll shoot as soon as we get in there will be stun blasts, honest!"

"Unless we forget to change the gun settings like that one time," another one yelled helpfully.

"Which we won't! So open up!"

"No, thanks." Ford scooted a bit further from the door, which was turning a dull red in the center as it was hit by more energy blasts. The paint began to smoke. The filing cabinet started to look oppressed.

"Have you ever used any other names or aliases, Ford?" Arthur called.

Ford looked at him. "Do we really have to talk about this now?"

"Yes," said Arthur. "List them off, all that you can remember."

"Well, there's 'Ford Prefect,' for starters."

Arthur boggled. "Er, right. So...what's your real name?"

Ford reeled off a long string of consonants, pausing for breath occasionally.

"And how is that spelled?"

"Just like it sounds!"

Arthur put his head in his hands. He'd been traveling with Ford for the better part of a decade now, and this sort of thing still never failed to raise his blood pressure.

"Look, Arthur, in case you hadn't noticed, we are _trapped_ in this room and people are _shooting_ at us. Do you suppose you could leave the life trivia questions until we're not in immediate mortal peril?"

"Come on, stop being so difficult!" the bailiffs shouted. "We just need your identiprint on the delivery confirmation and then we'll leave you alone!"

"I'm refusing delivery!" Ford shouted back. To Arthur, he said, "Look. If this is some strange Earth death ritual, can we just take a shortcut?" Arthur opened his mouth to say something, but Ford held up a hand. "My Galactic ID number is A19490589*5127752*2784. So perhaps you can just look up whatever you need to know in the citizen database and leave me to _negotiating with the toothy tax toads who are trying to kill us all_."

"I told you," a bailiff shouted. "we don't do that anymore. New procedures have resulted in a nearly two-percent reduction in accidental enforcement-related deaths!"

"And you can't refuse delivery!" shouted another.

"Or negotiate!" yelled another.

"Resistance is useless!" they chorused enthusiastically.

The gunfire started again.

Ford moaned quietly and began looking for something else to shove in front of the door.

Suddenly, Arthur crowed in triumph, and did an unattractive little dance in front of the terminal. Marvin averted his eyes from the horror. Ford merely boggled.

Ten seconds later, the hallway outside ceased to ring with the sound of gunfire and started to ring with the sound of...well..._ringing_. It was as though all the radios and comm units of their attackers went off at once. They heard muffled discussion, and a few clearly distinguishable "Yes, sir!"s.

The hallway went quiet, and then there was a tentative knock at the door.

"Not interested!' Ford yelled.

"It's only that we're very sorry to bother you, sir," said a Vroth, "but delivery's been cancelled."

Ford gaped at the door. "Cancelled?"

"Have a nice day, sir."

And there was silence. Arthur looked positively gleeful. Ford looked faintly sick. "What...how...what's the catch? Why aren't we dead?" he demanded.

"No catch," Marvin intoned, creaking up from the chair in front of the terminal and shoving the filing cabinet away from the door. "Just an ongoing stretch of the interminable tedium you call 'living.' If you like that sort of thing." He opened the door onto an empty hallway and stomped out.

Ford looked at Arthur. Arthur shrugged smugly, and followed Marvin out the door.

Ford went out after them, hurrying a little to catch up.

"Arthur," Ford said, "what in Zarquon's name just happened? Did you..._do_ something?"

Arthur took a deep breath. "I petitioned to have you declared bankrupt," he said. In front of them, Marvin coughed. "With Marvin's help, of course," Arthur said hurriedly. "We never could have hacked into the spaceport's etha-net and completed the forms in time without his computing skills."

Marvin muttered something that sounded like "glorified secretary" and quickened his pace slightly.

Ford blinked. "Bankrupt? I'm professionally bankrupt, Arthur—I'm a _hitchhiker_."

"When the petition was successful, they froze your assets." Arthur paused. "Which consisted, in their entirety, of one Ningi."

Ford stared at him. "You...you saved my life."

"Yes, well..." Arthur coughed.

The words "It was nothing, really," floated up in his throat and he swallowed them down.

The phrase "No need for thanks" suggested itself and was rejected.

"All in a day's work," "Think no more of it," and "Happy to do it, dear chap" were similarly suppressed, and an alternative response arose in their place. It was a new response, an alien response, a response born of long years spent wandering the galaxy with Ford Prefect and his disreputable friends. Arthur stuttered, and stopped again as his mouth refused to conform to this new intruder.

Ford began to look mildly concerned. Or perhaps hungry; it was sometimes difficult to tell, with Ford. He tried again. "You saved my life, Arthur!" He waited expectantly for a reply.

Every cell in Arthur Dent's body shuddered as the vast and bitter oceans of his galactic experience rallied to express themselves against the armada of his customary English courtesy. For a few brief moments, skirmishes, battles, and all manner of other engagements were fought within Arthur's soul. He looked Ford in the eye through the haze of spiritual smoke and gunpowder.

"Yes," he gritted out. "And you owe me."

Ford was a bit taken aback. "Er...put it on my tab?" he offered, with a weak grin.

"No," said Arthur, as the armies of his Englishness melted away, affronted. "I think not." He tried on one of Ford's mostly-sane grins, and found that it felt rather nice to be on the grinning end for a change. "Tabs," he explained cheerfully, "are in fact your problem."

Ford began to look distinctly apprehensive.

"In order to have you declared bankrupt," Arthur informed him, "I had to pose as your creditor. Your assets - one Ningi - will be liquidated and used to reimburse me for about two decades of paying for your drinks. Of course, that won't come close to covering it. So you really do owe me."

"Oh," Ford said. "Well then."

"Yes." Arthur said happily.

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence, punctuated only by the echoes of their footsteps in the grungy spaceport hallway. Marvin sighed.

"Hang on," Ford said, as a man who has found a possible diversion and is seizing on it desperately is wont to do. "how'd you do that? How'd you know _how_ to do that?"

"I was, on Earth, you know, before - I was kind of an accountant. Financial analyst, actually."

Ford peered at him. Though Arthur no longer wore bones in his beard or a ratty dressing-gown stained with the effluvia of a thousand spaceports, he had nonetheless cultivated the disreputable air proper to a veteran hitchhiker, one who, like his trusty towel, has become a bit frayed at the edges through seeing too much of the Galaxy. His trainers were scuffed and worn, gray with the dust of dozens of exotic planets. His satchel was stained and torn and a corner of a dilapidated towel trailed forlornly out of one side. His jumper had a hole in it near the collarbone.

Ford experienced a moment of cognitive dissonance. Arthur didn't _look_ like a financial analyst. In fact...

"But you said you worked for the BBC!"

"I did. The BBC needs—needed—financial analysts too, you know. It's a very important job." Arthur fidgeted and avoided Ford's eyes.

"Yes, but I thought - hang on, you said maybe you could get me some voiceovers!" Ford was outraged.

Arthur blushed and looked indignant at the same time, no mean feat for a man with only one head. "Look, you said you were an out-of-work actor from Guildford, so I hardly think you're on any sort of moral high ground about occupational accuracy here," he snapped.

Ford was sure (as sure as a Guide reporter who has spent a lot of time wandering the galaxy under the influence of Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters can be, that is) that he had never at any point visited anywhere that might qualify as a moral high ground. This did not, however, dissuade him from making his point.

"Arthur," he said triumphantly, "you _lied_ to me!"

Arthur looked away and walked a little faster. They could see the launch area ahead, and the sun had re-emerged to bathe it in a warm afternoon glow. "Look, does it matter now? I just thought, well, maybe if you were interested you'd let me buy you a drink, or something."

Ford recalled that he had let Arthur buy him rather a lot of drinks that night.

Arthur had, in fact, spent weeks gathering the courage to go to the particular London pub at which he had first met Ford. The pub had a bit of a reputation around town, and Arthur's curiosity was piqued by the rumors. He had planned to meet a few blokes, make a little suave light conversation, and perhaps experiment a bit with his sexuality. Women hadn't been working out for him so well lately, and he thought a change of pace might be just the ticket.

Ford Prefect hadn't been quite the change of pace Arthur had been hoping for. He'd seemed promising at first, sitting down next to Arthur and starting up a friendly conversation, but as the night wore on he'd drunk up the greater part of Arthur's discretionary fund for the month, told some wildly improbable stories, and then fallen asleep at the table. Arthur had poured the comatose Ford into a cab and gone home alone.

Still, Arthur thought, life hadn't been dull since. Mortally terrifying, yes. Ridiculously improbable, certainly. But never dull. He looked at Ford, who had fallen silent and appeared to be thinking about something very hard.

Suddenly Ford snapped his fingers. "Arthur!" he said. "You tried to pick me up!"

Arthur gave him Put-Upon Expression Number Twenty-Seven, which was his favorite. He only used it for special occasions, but he felt this qualified. "You're just now figuring that out, are you?" he enquired, somewhat bitterly.

"Well, I can't be expected to keep up with the mating rituals of every backwater species in the Galaxy!" Ford protested. He looked at Arthur. "Really?" he asked.

"Look, it was a long time ago, and subsequent events have rendered all 'last man on Earth' jokes really spectacularly unfunny, so can we just drop it?"

"No," said Ford, a new grin dawning on his face, "no, I don't think so. After all, Arthur, I _do_ owe you."

Arthur blinked.

Ford's grin intensified. "However can I repay you?"

Arthur blinked again, and then smiled back. "I don't know, Ford," he said, over the sound of the _Heart of Gold_ settling gently onto the launch pad behind them. "Why don't you buy me a drink, and we'll talk about it?"


End file.
